Segun Ogunsanya at 60: Can Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Become a Sovereign Development Engine?

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Eleven years ago, I sat across from Segun Ogunsanya in his office at Airtel’s headquarters in Lagos. Behind him was a vast stretch of water visible through a glass wall overlooking an ocean at Banana Island. As he reflected on what the view meant to him, he offered a remark that has stayed with me ever since. “The water is unlimited,” he said. “We see in it the future. We see an expanse of opportunity for our business, just waiting to be tapped.”

At the time, he was talking about telecommunications. Today, as Chairman of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, he confronts a much larger ocean: the challenge of deploying capital to unlock Nigeria’s economic future.

Of course, when Segun Ogunsanya turned 60 last week, many of the tributes focused, understandably, on his remarkable corporate career. Few Nigerian executives have built a reputation for execution quite like his. From leading Airtel Nigeria through a fiercely competitive telecommunications market to eventually overseeing Airtel Africa’s operations across multiple countries, Ogunsanya demonstrated an ability to translate strategy into measurable results.

Yet his most consequential assignment may still lie ahead.

As Chairman of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), a position he assumed in 2024, Ogunsanya now sits at the intersection of capital, policy and national development. The challenge before him is fundamentally different from anything he faced in the private sector. Airtel was ultimately accountable to shareholders. NSIA is accountable to generations.

The difference is profound.

For much of Nigeria’s post-independence history, public institutions have struggled to inspire confidence. Many have been weakened by political interference, weak governance or inconsistent execution. NSIA stands apart. Since its establishment in 2011, the sovereign wealth fund has steadily built a reputation for professionalism, transparency and disciplined investment management that is rare not only in Nigeria but across much of the developing world.

Its record speaks for itself.

Over the years, NSIA has grown into one of Africa’s most respected sovereign investment institutions, earning international recognition for governance standards while expanding its asset base and investment footprint. Unlike many sovereign wealth funds that function largely as passive custodians of national wealth, NSIA has evolved into an active participant in Nigeria’s development story.

That evolution deserves greater attention because it reveals something important about how economic development is increasingly being financed in Nigeria.

The Authority was originally designed around a simple framework. Incoming capital would be allocated across three distinct funds: the Stabilisation Fund, the Future Generations Fund and the Nigeria Infrastructure Fund. The model sought to balance fiscal stability, long-term savings and domestic development.

Over time, however, reality intervened.

Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit proved too large, and the demands of economic transformation too urgent, for a purely conservative approach. Consequently, NSIA adjusted its capital allocation strategy, reducing the share flowing into the Future Generations Fund while increasing the proportion dedicated to infrastructure investment.

That decision may prove one of the most consequential policy choices in the institution’s history.

In effect, Nigeria made a strategic judgment that future generations may benefit more from roads, healthcare facilities, energy projects, logistics infrastructure and digital networks built today than from additional financial assets invested abroad. It was a recognition that development itself is an intergenerational asset.

The results of that shift are increasingly visible.

NSIA has invested in toll roads, fertilizer production, healthcare infrastructure, agriculture, renewable energy and climate-resilient projects. It has secured access to international climate finance platforms and emerged as a trusted co-investment partner for development finance institutions and private investors. Its network of oncology and diagnostic centres is helping reduce medical tourism while improving access to specialized healthcare services for Nigerians. More recently, it has expanded into digital infrastructure, including investments that support Nigeria’s growing data economy.

These are not the activities of a traditional sovereign wealth fund.

They are the actions of an institution attempting to bridge one of the largest development financing gaps in the world.

This is where comparisons with Norway, often regarded as the gold standard of sovereign wealth management, become instructive.

Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global invests almost entirely outside the country. It is designed to preserve wealth for future generations and prevent oil revenues from distorting the domestic economy. It is a model that has served Norway exceptionally well.

But Nigeria is not Norway.

Norway’s challenge is managing abundance. Nigeria’s challenge is overcoming scarcity.

Norway can afford to invest its oil wealth abroad because it already possesses world-class infrastructure, efficient public services and strong institutions. Nigeria faces a very different reality. It continues to grapple with inadequate transport networks, unreliable electricity, healthcare deficits, housing shortages and insufficient productive capacity.

A sovereign wealth fund operating in such an environment cannot simply function as a passive savings account.

It must become an instrument of economic transformation.

In that regard, NSIA’s increasingly activist approach should not be viewed as a deviation from best practice. Rather, it represents an adaptation of sovereign wealth principles to Nigerian realities.

Yet this is where the real challenge for Ogunsanya begins.

The issue facing NSIA today is no longer one of direction.

It is one of scale.

Even with its net asset value climbing to $3.4 billion, the Authority’s balance sheet remains modest when measured against the sheer scale of national scarcity. Nigeria’s annual infrastructure funding gap alone is estimated at $14 billion—meaning the NSIA’s entire accumulated wealth could be swallowed up by a single year’s national requirement. In fact, the World Bank notes Nigeria needs $100 billion annually to close its overall deficit, while the government tracks an acute, immediate gap of $14 billion annually. No sovereign wealth fund, regardless of how flawlessly managed, can close that chasm on its own balance sheet. The math demands a shift from direct funding to macro-orchestration.

This reality demands a new strategic ambition.

A decade ago, Ogunsanya told me that leadership was ultimately about creating the changes one wishes to see. “For you to create step-change in performance in any business, you must cope with change or create the change you want to see.” That philosophy may now be tested on a larger stage than any corporate boardroom.

Nigeria does not need marginal improvements in development finance. It needs a step-change in how capital is mobilised, infrastructure is financed and growth is sustained.

The next phase of NSIA’s evolution should be less about investing its own capital and more about mobilising other people’s capital.

This scale mismatch is where Ogunsanya’s private sector past offers an unexpected playbook for public capital.

Telecommunications networks do not achieve dominance merely by building physical assets; they scale through network effects. A single mobile tower is a stranded cost; a network of towers that connects millions becomes an exponential value multiplier. Every new participant who plugs into the infrastructure increases the utility of the entire ecosystem.

The next phase of the NSIA must apply this exact network architecture to financial engineering. The Authority’s future cannot be about acting as the sole builder of isolated projects; it must be about becoming the central switchboard for domestic and international capital.  Its greatest asset is no longer its cash, but its credibility – the ultimate anchor tenant. By using its $3.4 billion balance sheet not to fund projects entirely, but to provide risk guarantees and first-loss capital, the NSIA can create a financial network effect. Just as a telecom operator crowds subscribers onto a network, the NSIA can crowd pension funds, insurance firms, and global asset managers into structured, investment-grade portfolios.

Imagine a sovereign investment platform capable of aggregating state-level infrastructure projects into investment-grade portfolios. Imagine healthcare investment vehicles that attract pension funds and insurance companies. Imagine climate-finance structures that crowd in international capital at a scale far beyond what public resources alone could support. Imagine infrastructure assets being securitized and listed on domestic exchanges, allowing local pension funds to finance national development while earning stable long-term returns.

These are the kinds of innovations that could fundamentally alter Nigeria’s development trajectory.

NSIA possesses something increasingly valuable in global finance: credibility.

The institution has demonstrated that Nigerian public capital can be managed transparently and professionally. It enjoys the confidence of international investors, development partners and financial institutions. That credibility is itself an asset—one that can be leveraged to unlock capital far beyond the Authority’s own balance sheet.

There is also a governance lesson here for the broader public sector.

For years, debates about development have focused almost exclusively on how much money government spends. NSIA’s experience suggests that institutional quality matters just as much as capital availability. Governance, transparency and disciplined execution are not administrative luxuries; they are development tools.

The success of NSIA demonstrates what becomes possible when public institutions are insulated from political volatility and allowed to operate with professional autonomy.

As Segun Ogunsanya enters his seventh decade, he inherits an institution that has already accomplished something significant: it has proven that sovereign wealth can be deployed responsibly in Nigeria.

The question now is whether it can be deployed transformationally.

The first decade of NSIA was about establishing credibility. The second decade must be about achieving scale.

During our conversation a decade ago, Ogunsanya told me that one of his guiding philosophies was to leave every place better than he met it. At Airtel, that meant rebuilding a struggling telecommunications operator into a market leader. At NSIA, the standard is considerably higher. The institution he now helps oversee is not merely a corporation. It is a national instrument whose success or failure will shape opportunities for millions of Nigerians.

If Ogunsanya succeeds, his legacy will not be measured primarily by the returns generated on NSIA’s portfolio. It will be measured by the investment it unlocks, the industries it helps create, the infrastructure it enables and the millions of Nigerians whose lives improve because sovereign capital was used not merely to preserve wealth, but to build a nation.

That would be a fitting achievement for a man whose career has always been defined by connecting potential to opportunity.

Adeola Akinremi, a public policy strategist and risk intelligence analyst specializing in emerging market regulation, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Hintells, a cross-corridor, AI-powered enterprise risk intelligence infrastructure for businesses and African diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. He can be reached via email: adeola@hintells.com